This week’s photo of Bernard Perlin and Edward Newell dates back to 1970.
These were acquired by the Kinsey Institute after his death in 1955. George Platt Lynes (1907 – 1955) was an American photographer who worked in the 1930s and 1940s, producing many photographs that featured gay artists and writers. He mixed with many American expatriates in Europe and was the model for the character Robert Prentiss in Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises. Glenway Wescott (1901 – 1987) was an American poet, novelist and essayist. He would spend the rest of his life with Glenway Wescott and die one year after Wescott’s passing, requesting that his ashes be buried with his lifelong partner. Monroe Wheeler (1899 – 1988) was an American publisher and museum coordinator. Click on the photo to launch the interesting video. Above is a screen capture of Hugh speaking about what the collection of these photos represent and their significance. I’ve shared several of the photos from this collection in the past and will likely continue to share more in the future but the BBC 5 minute video published in November 2020 is worth watching. The result of their unexpected discovery is a moving book, portraying male romance over the course of a century. But things changed when they found more photographs. When Hugh Nini and Neal Treadwell stumbled across a photo from the 1920s of two men in a tender embrace they thought it was one-of-a-kind. Do you have a photo you would like to share? Email me at Vintage Gay PhotosĬlick on the image to watch the BBC video I dedicate this weekly post, featuring vintage gay photographs, to the men and women who lived in a more critical time where being true to yourself and loving who you want wasn’t always an option and came at a great price. Certainly it would have been more comfortable standing on either side or behind the man in the middle. Men in the past were often photographed close together and touching, but the photo strikes me as more intimate with each man interlacing his hands and sharing a seat so that the men on either side are half seated on the arm of the chair and half curled around each leg of the man in the middle. Are you able to glean anything from the clothing or hair style that might pinpoint a date or location when these three were photographed? I can’t tell much about this photo other than that Harvey (on the left) was eighteen years old when the picture was taken. This photo was posted on the Twitter account and I swiped it for this weekly blog post.